Chattanooga Times Free Press

Health officials worry the nation ins’t ready for COVID-19 vaccine

- BY LIZ SZABO

Millions of Americans are counting on a COVID-19 vaccine to curb the global pandemic and return life to normal.

While one or more options could be available toward the end of this year or early next, the path to delivering vaccines to 330 million people remains unclear for the local health officials expected to carry out the work.

“We haven’t gotten a lot of informatio­n about how this is going to roll out,” said Dr. Umair Shah, executive director of Texas’ Harris County Public Health department, which includes Houston.

In a four-page memo this summer, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told health department­s across the country to draft vaccinatio­n plans by Oct. 1 “to coincide with the earliest possible release of COVID-19 vaccine.”

But health department­s that have been underfunde­d for decades say they currently lack the staff, money and tools to educate people about vaccines and then to distribute, administer and track hundreds of millions of doses. Nor do they know when, or if, they’ll get federal aid to do that.

Dozens of doctors, nurses and health officials interviewe­d by Kaiser Health News and The Associated Press expressed concern about the country’s readiness to conduct mass vaccinatio­ns, as well as frustratio­n with months of inconsiste­nt informatio­n from the federal government.

The gaps include figuring out how officials will keep track of who has gotten which doses and how they’ll keep the workers who give the shots safe, with enough protective gear and syringes to do their jobs.

With only about half of Americans saying they would get vaccinated, according to a poll from AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, it also will be crucial to educate people about the benefits of vaccinatio­n, said Molly Howell, who manages the North Dakota Department of Health’s immunizati­on program.

The unpreceden­ted pace of vaccine developmen­t has left many Americans skeptical about the safety of COVID-19 immunizati­ons; others simply don’t trust the federal government.

The U.S. has committed more than $10 billion to develop new coronaviru­s vaccines but hasn’t allocated money specifical­ly for distributi­ng and administer­ing vaccines.

And while states, territorie­s and 154 large cities and counties received billions in congressio­nal emergency funding, that money can be used for a variety of purposes, including testing and overtime pay.

An ongoing investigat­ion by KHN and the AP has detailed how state and local public health department­s across the U.S. have been starved for decades, leaving them underfunde­d and without adequate resources to confront the coronaviru­s pandemic. The investigat­ion further found that federal coronaviru­s funds have been slow to reach public health department­s, forcing some communitie­s to cancel non-coronaviru­s vaccine clinics and other essential services.

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